Ahead of the European Investment Bank's (EIB) annual consultation with civil society organisations (CSOs) on 2nd February, Eurodad and partners Counter Balance and CEE Bankwatch have sent a briefing to the EIB directors regarding the bank's priorities ...

Representatives of the
Global Jubilee Debt Relief Coalition visited the Vatican in Rome last month to
discuss what to do about the global debt crisis. High and surging debt levels
are causing economic and developmental problems once again. This time it’s a
problem affecting every region of the world. The ethical dynamite of the ‘who
owes whom and what and why’ is dividing humanity into creditors and debtors. A
new Jubilee is long overdue.
Breaking the chains of debt
The Bible’s Old
Testament describes a practice from the ancient world that could well be the
world’s first insolvency regime. Every seven years, slaves and prisoners were
to be freed, and debts were to be forgiven. This seventh year is called the
Jubilee. Photo: The Jubilee delegation with Cardinal TurksonThe ...

MEPs
to vote on new loan in April.Tunisia
is already paying more to its Western creditors than it receives in loans and
grants, and almost all of the new loan would be used for debt repayments.
Brussels, 28th March 2014
Civil society groups from Tunisia and Europe are
urging the European Parliament to concentrate on debt relief instead of voting
through a EUR 300 million loan to Tunisia, arguing that this will only add to
the country’s huge existing debt burden.
The loan – ...

The OECD’s Development
Assistance Committee (DAC) will meet in Paris later this month to discuss the
ongoing process of re-examining the
definition of – and reporting criteria for – aid. This review could not come
soon enough as the EU, some of its
largest member states and multilateral development banks, are increasingly reporting profit-making
loans as aid due to outdated and ambiguous rules. Eurodad’s new report, A matter of high interest: Assessing how loans are reported as
development aid finds a
number of critical problems with the current reporting system. If the OECD DAC
review does not bring an end to lax reporting criteria, aid could be
artificially inflated by more than 50 billion euros in coming years. In an era when overall
aid budgets are declining globally, ...